This invention relates generally to furniture, more particularly to as cushion for use with a chair for use by small children to convert the chair to a chair which is comfortable and functional for a larger person, either a larger child or adult.
Classroom or institutional furniture is known in the art. Chairs, for example, that are used by small children in the preschool classroom traditionally have been downsized replicas of full-sized institutional furniture. Quite often these chairs lack aesthetic appeal in that they do not blend in well with other preschool type furniture. More importantly, these chairs are not designed with safety in mind. For example, such furniture is designed to fold for storage, which can create a pinching hazard. The furniture also may have gaps in which a small child may catch an arm or leg. Further, such prior art furniture may have comers.
Traditional, downsized furniture also may lack functionality. This type of furniture may be heavy and difficult to move about the classroom. The furniture may not stack for convenient storage and it may be constructed of a material that lacks durability. Such traditional furniture may be difficult to assemble and not well adapted to the classroom environment.
Many of the problems and shortcomings associated with prior art, downsized furniture were address by the invention disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,599,068, to Kelly et al., the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference. The chair disclosed in the patent is a safe, molded chair that is well suited for its intended use in a classroom setting. However, since a commercial embodiment of the disclosed chair is dimensioned to accommodate small children, it does not easily accommodate a larger individual, such as the teacher. For example, chair disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,599,068 has a plastic body section and a pair of arch-shaped tubular leg element. The apexes of the bows of the arch-shaped legs elements extend above the plane of the seat and can function as arm rests are hip supports for the smaller user. An adult user of the chair may have difficulty fitting between the arch-shaped tubular leg elements so as to comfortably rest on the seat. In the classroom setting, if a larger person, for example the teacher, desires to sit on a chair next to or among the students, he or she must get a larger chair or sit in an uncomfortable position on the smaller chair. It would be advantageous, therefore, to have a portable or removable, lightweight cushion device that can be placed on the seat of a chair having arm rests or hip supports that effectively increases the seating area of the chair so as to accommodate a larger user.